The present invention relates to the field of electronic messaging and, more particularly, to sharing distribution list contents in electronic messaging systems.
Electronic messages, such as instant messages and emails, have become standard forms of communication in the modern business world, allowing geographically diverse parties to discuss and collaborate on business projects. A wide variety of tools and features exist that increase the usability of electronic messages, particularly distribution lists. Most electronic messaging applications allow a user to categorize other members into groups, typically called distribution lists, as a timesaving feature. For example, instead of having to enter each recipient email address manually when addressing an email message, instead, a user can address the email message with the name of a distribution list that contains the specified email addresses. The distribution list is then available for reuse on subsequent email messages.
While advantageous for the creator/sender, the use of distribution lists tends to pose access and/or visibility issues for the recipients. In most conventional electronic messaging systems, the creator and/or designated members of the distribution list are capable of accessing the contents of the distribution list. Members receiving the electronic message are typically only able to see the name of the distribution group. In some cases, this obscuring of distribution list members is intentional and protects a sender's contact information from being disseminated to others. When a recipient wants to reply to an electronic message, however, he/she can be unaware of the identities of the other members to whom they are sending their reply. Further, the recipients should each be members of an electronic communication system.
Some electronic messaging systems have attempted to overcome this issue by replacing the name of the distribution list with the addresses of its members. Although this approach provides recipients with visibility to the other members, they must still perform any actions with the distribution list manually. For example, when a recipient wants to have a copy of an email distribution list available for use when sending email messages, the recipient must take the time to create the distribution list manually within their email address book.
Additionally, the use of distribution lists in conventional electronic messaging systems is confined to a single electronic message type. That is, an email distribution list is only usable for sending emails, an instant messaging group for sending instant messages, and so on. This situation requires that users reiterate their distribution lists between electronic messaging systems of different types, which can be a time consuming manual endeavor prone to errors.